Dragonaut – 25 (END)

With Thanatos having sent six billion Ostrums out to every corner of the planet, Sieglinde thinks that it wants to force Resonances on the entire human population. Despite these seemingly impossible odds, she, Raina, Itsuki, and their dragon partners still fly into battle and try to protect as many people as they can on Earth, including Sieglinde’s father. Jin meanwhile intends to persuade Thanatos to stop all this, and though he hasn’t thought up a plan to do so yet, he’s determined to protect the planet and to open a new chapter in the history of humans and dragons. He, Toa, and Gio have a hard time getting close to Thanatos though because of all the Ostrums in their way, and to their surprise, Nozaki suddenly appears and offers to help. Before doing so, he asks Toa if she’s happy, and when she responds yes, he goes on to explain that he always suspected that their feelings were brought about by the Resonance. However he realized that it didn’t matter whether their feelings were created or occurred naturally because what’s important is feeling that those emotions are real and believing in themselves.

Nozaki then reveals that he has the anti-Thanatos factor inside of him, so he can deal a blow to Thanatos. He has a person he wants to protect, and though he wanted to see the future of humans and dragons with his own eyes, he’s willing to entrust that to Jin and Toa’s bonds, so he urges them to deliver their feelings to Thanatos. And with that, Nozaki changes into his dragon form, charges at the mass of Ostrums, and detonates himself. This takes out enough Ostrums to allow Jin to fly Gio straight into Thanatos’ mouth, but they are met by the original Ostrum once they get inside. Gio sends Jin and Toa ahead while he handles Ostrum, and after a bit of fighting, Ostrum questions Gio about not obeying Thanatos’ will. Down the hall, Toa and Jin are stopped by Garnet who asks why Toa is so attached to Jin. When Toa answers that she loves him, Garnet decides to see if these feelings are authentic because she thinks that there is nothing that trumps over fusing with Thanatos. She sends Jin into a world where the shuttle accident never happened and he meets Toa on the shuttle instead. Jin, however, figures out that it’s not real and gets out of it by following Toa’s voice.

Back in the earlier area, Gio tells Ostrum that they all changed after doing Resonances with humans, but Ostrum refuses to accept this. Their fight continues until Gio manages to power up and impale Ostrum, and Ostrum ends up wondering if they really need hearts that care for others. Gio answers that he is glad to have been born on this planet because he was able to gain a heart, know love, and be with Jin and Toa. As Ostrum disappears, he smiles and comments on how the heart is where he and Gio differ. Jin and Toa meanwhile try to make Garnet understand that she’s the one who’s actually alone and that their love doesn’t depend on the Resonance. The power of their love washes over all of Thanatos as they cut themselves free, and this in turn leads to all of the Ostrums on Earth deactivating. The stigmata also disappears from Toa’s back. Realizing that she’s the one who’s alone, Garnet glows and disappears into a silver sphere that suddenly appears. The female figure who materializes – recognized by Toa to be Mother – concedes that she’s spent too much time alone and promises to think about the meaning of love on her way to the next planet. After returning Jin, Toa, and Gio to space, Thanatos explains that she’ll be back someday, and though she doesn’t know who will greet her then, she believes that if it is them, then she won’t be disappointed.

In the aftermath, Jin and Toa return to Earth and are reunited with the other Dragonauts. Gio has to leave, and as they watch him fly off into space, Jin and Toa hold hands and declare that they’re not alone.

So this ended up being the power-of-love ending after all, and no one died except for Nozaki. I don’t know why they even bothered to kill him off since it felt like his death was rather pointless in the grand scheme of things. Regardless, I didn’t think that the ending wasn’t a complete train wreck (alas, a song didn’t defeat all the Ostrums), but it was still pretty bad because using the power of love to solve everything is so deus ex machina-ish. Granted, I suspect that an ending where Jin and Toa sacrificed themselves to save Earth (like I had speculated about last week) probably wouldn’t have been too much better in that regard, but it just goes to show you the kind of hole the writers dug themselves into.

I thought there was one point in this episode where the story could have potentially redeemed itself a little, and that was when Garnet sent Jin into that illusion world. It might have been interesting to consider if Jin loved Toa enough to lose his family all over again for her, but that’s not the direction they ended up going with that scene, so it felt like an opportunity lost. This episode also had the weirdest fight sequence I’ve seen in a while – partway through Gio vs. Ostrum, both of them decide to turn upside down and fight with their legs. I couldn’t help laughing because it looked so strange.

Final Thoughts: I remember thinking last year that this show had a pretty impressive voice cast (the Suzumiya Haruhi group) and showed some promise. I had no idea that it’d turn out like this, though I probably should have guessed that this wasn’t going to be any good after the beginning of the story entered that seemingly perpetual cycle of someone always being captured and needing to be rescued. Before watching this show, I wasn’t a huge fan of Gonzo works, but I still thought they were mostly okay. I could have ended up feeling that way about Dragonaut too, but as the series wore on, my opinion of it just kept dropping, and all the Kazuki stuff in episode 23 drove the final nail into the coffin. At best, Dragonaut makes me doubly cautious of other Gonzo shows from now on. At worst, I completely stop watching Gonzo shows, at least until the memories of this fade away.

I’m just glad it’s over…the writers/director should be banned from anime. It had a chance to redeem itself a bit via a RxJ type ending. Of course it’s a happy, lovey, flower ending and we’re left to wonder what Jin and Toa’s kids will be like.

I gave up on this series early on. Everything was rediculous. The relationship between the main character and Toa was pathetically weak yet he seemed like he just found his soul mate. Could even sense that Toa was on the moon in the early episode but couldn’t tell when she was right behind him hiding in a bush. Every fight scene seemed to be dominated by boob bouncing instead of the actual combat. Judging by the comments on this series I’m glad I stopped :)

Meanwhile in japan…..
The seyiuu ONO DAISUKE + CHIHARA MINORI = HAD MARRIAGE AND ARE WAITING THEIR FIRST BABY!!
NICE SHOOT ODA KUN!!!! now all the monkey spamkers otakus in japan are in despair saying stuff like:

” NOOOOOO MINORI CHAN NOT YOU MINORI CHAN ” AND ALL THE GAY OTAKUS ARE SAYING:
” NOOOOOO DAISUKE CHAN(

I still can’t get over how bad the character art looks now. I don’t think it was this bad at the beginning. I mean everyone just barely resembles the shape of a human being with proportions all over the place. And I’m not just talking about the breasts either. http://randomc.net/image/Dragonaut/Dragonaut%20-%2025%20-%20Large%2021.jpg looks particularly bad. Look at Machina’s hands and just the faces in general with their saturday morning comic strip “you distinguish the face via the power of your mind” bare bones drawing style.

I think it’s a bit unfair not to watch Gonzo shows just because you’ve watched a rather bad series from them (who told you to watch it anyways? you could drop it any time).
Not to mention that Gonzo can do very good shows, e.g. Romeo x Juliet, Speed Grapher, Last Exile, Yukikaze etc.

So there’s gonna be a dvd only 26th episode on the last dvd volume which comes out 9/24/08. But it’s in a parallel world…dunno how much they can do in one ep, but it cant be worse than 1-25. They’d be smart to just have lot of Toa/Sieglinde fanservice.

Oh yes… Yes it can be A LOT WORSE, don’t ever… Ever let your guard down on how low Gonzo can go, especially with this series… I mean… This series is just a jumbled mess of c*** (edited for younger readers :P)… I’ll put it like this, American cartoons that are retarded beyond hell that you can watch on fox television on Saturdays have better plots than this… Even the (now) retarded power ranger show is better than this (Only the original season(s) was the shit), and trust me when I say I’d rather have been tortured watching a season of that than this (Only watched this through its entirety because I finish what I start watching)…

You know, I’ve rewatched ep25 and a few other eps over again cause I must be crazy and have nothing else to do. I actually think they’re decent and even good if you look at it from the perspective of a 8 yr old shonen boy who likes DBZ and Wataru. Just leave the thinking out of it…

The power of love is something cannot be underestimated! If you guys can understand from the point of view of religion, I’m pretty sure you guys would understand that. Dragonaut was not bad after all. I’ve been into this show the moment it is announced through some anime sites in Japanese.

The only thing that I don’t like is that Nozaki/Atrum dies for meaningless reason. He did not deserve to die since he’s the one had been protecting the dragons eggs safe and wanted happiness for those dragons from their eggs with their masters. Plus, he’s deeply devoted to Kitajima Yuri which is something not questionable.

I’m glad that almost everyone are alive except death of Nozaki….. Yes, boys, some of u bet want the best for ur most craved big chesty female characters!!!

y kno i dont rly get why your problem with happy endings. i mean it wouldnt really make any difference if Toa and Jin died, it would be the same old thing just as we’ve seen millions of times. Cos all the creators out there wanting to make an outstanding show with great storyline to make you use your brain and cry and stuff, well, they just have this “boy meets girl” concept then make one of them or both die in the last episode. would that deserve to be called a new concept, refreshing idea, or “cool ending”? not in my opinion
so it really wouldnt make any difference,as we’ve seen it already. then if its not something refreshing and fantastic that youve never seen anyways then why not create a happy ending

@Kisuke
(oh ya and ‘C’ I guess this can be aimed at your comment too in someway)

No one was ever complaining about a happy ending (well maybe some were because of the very familiar E7 ending to it) or if the storyline was original or not… What you’re missing when reading people’s opinions of this show is that they hate the script, directing, & dialogue from the show. The thing with this show as someone stated before, is that it’s a show that was probably aimed for the 13 and under viewer audience. So older viewers (making a generalization about this) tend to hate it because it wasn’t a show meant for the older audience. Guessing from what I’ve seen, generally the ones who’ve probably praised this show are of the younger audience… Now if the show was aimed for 13 and under then it does make sense in why the plot was so bland/dumb/”childish”… Now don’t get me wrong on this, not all shows aimed for the younger audience are like this, but nearly half or more of them are… The problem comes when and if this show was aimed for 15 or older audience because this is when shows actually take scripting, dialogue, and the storyline seriously… So if this show was aimed for the “older” audience then it IS below par than most other animes because of the very childish nature of it… The fact that they used a “happy” ending type plot doesn’t make a remote of difference… It’s how they “played” out the storyline of the show and how it’s so bland and ridiculous thats causing people to severely dislike the show…

(also at Kisuke, proofread before submitting your response because you’re actually making me think in order to try and figure out what you’re trying to say because your phrasing/grammar doesn’t make sense in some areas… :P)

I actually enjoyed Dragonauts because it has good overall design, good animation (well particularly for the boobs ;) and there was somewhat some philosophy behind all this. It’s just a shame that the story didn’t evolve much further from the premises of the first episodes…they should have put some more on story telling than putting all out on graphic aspects.
I can understand that those who were waiting for some deep meaning behind the script really hate how it turned out. Well, I only watched it on a no-brainer mode so it was quite good for me.

At first, I thought that his anime would be a kick-ass, but damn!… this anime does not meet my expectation….what dragged me into watching this anime was that episode 1 was really good and it really captivated me… also I hate themes like “Love could conquer anything”, it isn’t just my style

It was good, but it has fallen. These are the only words I can say after watching this whole series. Sigh, this show had so much potential yet the writers seemed to have failed in creating and sustaining this atmosphere that was fabricated in the beginning of this series. They have utterly failed and there’s no other words that can describe it. I am truly disappointed by GONZO. Good thing their other animes were decent, Rosario+Vampire, a little bit disappointed by the fact that it didn’t follow the manga’s plot too closely but at least it is far from being a train wreck. This show really hit the nail in the coffin as it is pretty dead after the first thirteen eps or so. I kept on watching it hoping that it would redeem itself through time but I was let down immensely by GONZO. C’mon, GONZO writers, you guys can muster something better than this. With stuff like Last Exile and RomeoXJuliet this show is a horrendous let down. I hope they don’t fail me with The Tower of Druaga…they seriously can’t fail with that series as it is an established brand. Hope they don’t screw up. And I hope ep. 26 will be decent enough to redeem the show a little, though it is in a parallel universe and none of the cast will probably be of any importance in that ep. However, I just hope GONZO start picking up its slack and produce better anime.

Been watching this to the end. Enjoyed the series, but this last episode was just total crap. The breakdance fighting, it looks horrible. Jin and Toa escape from the melting with thanatos just by holding their hands? WTF?

I used to like this show, but after episode 16 or so, the whole series just went downhill, and the Kazuki business just killed off the series completely. Which is a shame, because the character design, voice acting, and general animation was great.

I used to really like the show. The 3D wasn’t great but it wasn’t terrible either. After episode 16, the series just completely went downhill and got buried when Kazuki’s reconciliation kicked on. The “emotional” scene ended up being laughable and there’s nothing I can say about this series other than the fact that the “power of love” apparently can free you from anything. Which is a shame because the voice-acting, animation and character design (minus the massive breasts) were gorgeous.

GONZO is getting quite famous for picking good manga stories and twisting its plot to utter boredom and shallowness half way through to fit their anime episodes. Another one bites the dust. Another anime by GONZO thats not recommended to watch.

Meh!
Well, everyone poited the bad stuff about the show, so I think I will try to save its reputation a bit.
The animation is not that bad. The CGI animated scenes are ok, though they seem a bit offplan mixed with regular drawings. I liked character design too. The huged boobed/no tits at all girls are a bit cliché, specially the sexy doctor/professor with glasses but… its a shonen show right? It was meant to, at least, get your dirty imagination going. :P

About the character personality, can’t say much good about them. They’re rather flat and cliché. The little girl who falls for the main char is annoying, Jin is the common lonely kindhearted hero, who falls for the girl. Toa, well, she’s odd. And I’m not talking about the fact that she turns into a dragon.

The story goes into a neverending loop of rescue/get caught, rescue/get caught. It even gets ridiculous how they managed to get caught (or turn themselves in). Nevertheless, it resembles much of eva. The sincronization stuff, the high tech labs, aliens that fight for us against other aliens, and I swear I saw Shinji and Rei passing by somewhere in an episode. really! I didn’t thought the ending was that bad. The show was meant to be about the relationship of those too. So, the writers would go for a bad ending, like they die or Toa goes away, a good ending (power of love) or a strange ending, where they all turn into dragons and get entangled in a mind orgia (you know what I mean):P

I think that instead of 25 episodes, they should go for 12/13. Half season.

So, in my opinion, if you’re going to start watching the show, just try to face it like a soft show with a bit of emo wannabe.

I actually liked the series. It was perfect. Well except for Toa, Toa ws jus horrible. That and the fact Akira died. Sure the ending wasnt that climactic but it was good. I think the writers did a good job with this. I don’t see why you’re complaining.

I wouldn’t say that all of gonzo’s shows are bad. I found shows like witchblade and rosario+vampire that they did were pretty good(though this show makes me wonder what they were smoking when they created this show)